Far Cry 2

The Good
Far Cry 2 has nothing to do with Far Cry 1. This alone is a bit of a disappointment, but if you can ignore that and call it something else, like "Blood Diamond: The Game" or "Burn Down Africa," or if you really want to be simple "Jackal hunt," you'll find a compelling action game.

The first thing you'll notice once FC2 starts up are the amazing visuals. The game looks absolutely incredible, better than anything currently on the PC. Plus it helps that the engine here is 10,000 times better coded than CrySis (Before you flame me: CrySis is a great game, but the engine is terribly programmed with no optimization) so that my 5 year old computer can run it on a high quality with a great frame rate. Everything from the shadows to treetop canopies and of course flames licking every square inch of burnable terrain.

The game itself is sort of like a mixture of Grand Theft Auto minus the large immersive city, and Fallout 3 minus the role playing. It is a sandbox first person shooter with great car controls, and an immersive jungle environment. It can be a little monotonous sometimes, but at others, it is great fun to explore the jungle. Firefights are intense and fun. The missions are good, but they can be repetitive, and side missions aren't that fun.

The AI is surprisingly smart for a game like this. Many firefights play out like cat and mouse chases.

The multiplayer, while standard for the genre, is extremely well executed and fun.

The Bad
Although the guns sound alright, the music is somewhat droning and the voice acting is awful.

Repetition is relatively common in this game, while it can be fun in short bursts I wouldn't recommend long periods of time.

The bus system isn't too helpful, it only takes you to the four corners of the map. It would've been nicer to have more bus stops so that if you are trying to get to a target in a hurry that isn't right next to the corner you go to you wouldn't have to walk so far.

The story is confusing, muddled, and meaningless. It had a lot of potential, but the game didn't tap into it.

The gun jamming happens too easily, which makes it annoying. Although sometimes it can help the immersion and make firefights more intense, more often than not its frustrating if anything.

The Bottom Line
FC2 is a fun sandbox shooter. Its not for everyone, and some may be off put by the fact that it is not a true sequel to the first and best game in the series. While it can be repetitive, it can also be very fun, and it is very easy on the eyes, and blowing stuff up and shooting the guns is fun. The immersive world is great as well.

The Good
This open world game really has a believable environment with its enriched graphic detail, be it jungle, savannah or dessert. Interesting details like roaming wild animals make the locations you're in very lively. Efforts were also made to make the buildings you enter look like habitable or serviceable places. Music and realistic sound effects add to the atmosphere. If VR could be implemented, this game would go to the next level.

The plot in this game is very elaborate. Even for a villain, the Jackal is a very likable character for his experience, his wisdom, his resourcefulness and the choices he makes. The more you listen to the tapes, the more you want to meet him. Even the buddies' missions have interesting motives for carrying them out.

Weapons in the game are well-balanced. The machete works properly and deals effectively killing blows, something it didn't do in the game before. It's fun to earn better weapons and upgrades, giving the game a sort of pseudo-RPG mechanic. The jamming mechanic is an interesting, but sometimes inconvenient way to add a survival element to the game.

The Bad
The game breaks away many of the most important elements from the first game. There's no radar to indicate where enemies are currently positioned, so expect to be ambushed all the time. Your buddies are one time savers, but they don't really do anything to help you like Valerie Constantine did in the prequel. You can no longer push vehicles effectively and certainly not push boats, forcing you to get a new one every moment or so with a lot of walking, running and catching your breath all the while. Also there's no body armour to protect you, just your own body as a meat shield. And don't even think about hiding underwater, because the system eats your health bars very quickly.

Stealth is rare in this game and not easy to utilise. You'll need the camo suit and all the silent weapons you can stock up as soon as possible. You cannot throw stones to distract your enemy, forcing you to improvise. The game really could have done with gas grenades to stealthily take out a group of enemies. The monocular is useless, only good for tagging guard posts, but it obscures your vision so you can hardly spot enemies. Far Cry 1's binoculars was so much better. It can also be difficult to traverse with scree and trees almost everywhere. Sometimes there are cliffs and mountains that have invisible barriers that stop you. Why make it look like you can ascend when you can't? And there's also trees that have thicker boundaries than shown so you end up messing up a sniper shootout before you know it.

The enemy AI completely breaks the scale, you'll have a hard time trying to match it. Perfect marksmanship for headshots is a must, otherwise enemies are going to take entire clips to kill. Even when you're careful, enemies seem to know where you are and nail you down in your hiding place. And switching a weapon is sluggish, even more so when reloading or cocking the current one, it's like an unfair rail shooter. Half the time you'll get killed before you can press the heal button, you'll be wishing you could auto-heal. One of your greatest enemies will be falling damage, especially from falling off edges that don't let you jump on walkable terrain. And there's the malaria, which requires the tedious process of taking pills.

The Bottom Line
Everything will punish and frustrate you, even if you're a brilliant FPS player. This is not a game you can go full rampage without dying repeatedly. Avoid playing the highest difficulty, this is for masochists. It's a great shame that the player character does not do sensible things like don a disguise or turn vehicles into VBIEDs, but instead choose to take the full plunge in the face of danger. There's so much missing from what you expect from any good fashioned FPS from a radar indicator to auto-saving.

I really wanted to give this game a merit, even a distinction, but its sadistic difficulty level and,abundance of flaws drive it away from being the perfect time spender. This title is in dire need of remaking and improvement and nice array of achievements to give the feel of accomplishment. If you decide to play this, take it easy and do your best to master its mechanics if you want to get far, otherwise just cry.

The Good
I loved the fact that it was set in Africa, and had a real African flavour. Thanks to the makers for consulting with Afrikaners and Zulus and using authentic voice overs.

Understanding the languages makes the speech so much more funny and interesting, and often I'd get shot up cos I couldn't stop laughing at the comments coming from the mercs!!

The sniper rifles were awesome and the being able to burn veld fires to chase and burn the peasants at road blocks was cool...

Graphics are beautiful and cover different ecosystems, that is forest, desert, lakes, Savannah.

Weapons are authentic (The AK47's shouldn't jam though) I enjoyed the fact that there was FAL Paratroop rifle (South African touch there) although a Paratroop rifle should have a shortened barrel and folding stock.

The Bad
The game gets a bit much having to drive endless km's shooting re spawning mercs at road blocks and often having to runaway by foot after your vehicle is destroyed!.

Missions that are kilometers away from the starting point are irritating, especially if it takes a few seconds to complete them and then in some cases having to return to the starting point, dodging shooting and driving over mercs in the process. Its get a bit much after a few missions.

The treasure hunt for cases is stupid and pointless, you climb mountains swim lakes etc.. to get a suitcase with just 1 diamond in it! you can't even buy a 9mm with that.

Came across some African Buffalo in the game, pity they didn't attack, you can walk up to them and literally pet them, i challenge anyone to do that in real life. Should have been able to exploit the wild game in the game, that is shoot Zebra, Wildebeest and Springbok for skins, for diamonds.. Earn diamonds from this. Why not! in war in Africa everything gets exploited especially the wildlife!, No elephants though, probably already been shot out by the waring clans.

The Bottom Line
Very original, fun to play, although it can become monotonous and boring at some stages with all the driving, running and swimming, it's simple, save the game and do something else and within a few hours you will be itching to put your hands on the Machine gun mounted on the jeep and shooting the #%#$^ out of another check point.